Chicken Noodle Soup Or Chicken And Dumplings

1 large stock pot
2 whole chickens
4 bay leafs
1 onion
12 chicken bouillon cubes
1 whole bundle of celery
1 bags of whole carrots
2 10.5 oz cans of cream of celery soup
3 Tablespoons Accent powder
2 Teaspoons Salt
Pepper

Estimated cooking time 3 hours including prep.

This recipe feeds 6 or more might want to cut it in half for smaller family but, we have a good amount of  leftovers as well.

First fill your pot half way with water and turn it on high and place 2 whole chickens in the pot make sure there is enough water to cover the chickens. Second take the onion and chop it up finely and toss it into the pot and bay leaves in as well. This will boil for about one hour and a half depending on the size of the chickens when they are done you will notice the meat falling off the bones. Once that happens you will turn the burner off take the chicken out and put aside into a bowl to cool off but be careful not to burn your self. While the chicken is cooling you will gather your carrots and celery wash them well and dice them to your preferred size.  Canned carrots work just as good as the fresh. Once you get them all cut turn your pot back on high and add your vegetables and your bouillon cubes add more if you prefer a stronger taste and add three tablespoons of Accent powder and stir well to make sure everything is dissolved. Now it is time to tackled that chicken you will have to take all the meat off the bones and add it into the pot just check thoroughly because you don’t want any bones in your soup.( Also important note make sure you are alone if a man is in the kitchen at the time he may eat the chicken.) Stir it up well. Once you get your desired taste open both cans of cream of celery soup and stir that in as well gives a great flavor to the soup.

Now here is where you decide Noodle or dumpling?

If you are going for the noodle option I would advise the wide egg noodle

4 cups of egg noodles or more if desired

If you choose dumpling there is more work involved.
Dumplings

4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon salt
Ice cold water

To prepare the dumplings: Mix the flour with the salt and mound together in a mixing bowl. Beginning at the center of the mound, drizzle a small amount of ice water over the flour. Using your fingers, and moving from the center to the sides of the bowl, gradually incorporate about two cups of ice cold water. Knead the dough repeatedly and form it into ball and yes it gets very sticky and I think to myself every time this isn’t going to work but it always does. so once you get the dough done sprinkle a  good amount of flour onto a clean work surface. Roll the dough around to form a nice ball and grab your rolling pin a out and start rolling out the dough. The dough will be firm and it will seem to bounce back it takes a little elbow grease to get it in it’s place. Once you get a nice slab of dough sprinkle some black pepper over it and take your rolling pin back over it to make it stick. Now the fun part is cutting it into small pieces I love to use a pizza cutter fast and works like a charm. Cut about one inch and a half or to your preferred size. Now we are done with the dumpling, just slowly drop a few into the boiling pot you don’t want to throw a lot in at one time because they might tend to stick together. After all dumplings are in make sure to turn your heat to a medium setting and let it cook for another 15 minutes and it will be ready to eat. 🙂

All Images are my own
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